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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Friday night is the opening for the new River Arts Exhibit, "Flora and Fauna". I'm honored to have had two paintings selected by juror Henry Isaacs, whose work I love. The Meadows and Distant Pink are shown above. Both of these were painted en plein air at Great Brook Farm State Park in Massachusetts.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

These are more examples of the exercises we did last weekend in the Peggi Kroll Roberts Workshop in Atlanta. #11 is a high key exercise, where all values are supposed to be on the lighter half of the value scale, using only two values, just different colors (not counting the background). I enjoyed this one. For #'s 15 and 16 we went back to the full spectrum of values, if required by the scene. Once again, I was trying for two value paintings. This is where I'll need to spend a lot of time practicing.

I can't say enough about what a great workshop this was. And what fun it is to work with excellent models. Thank you Ann, Kathryn, and Annie!

Monday, April 16, 2012

I had the pleasure this weekend of attending a workshop with Peggi Kroll Roberts at the Art school at Sandy Springs, Atlanta. The workshop was a focus on the clothed figure, and we worked both inside and outside, better light outside, better temperatures inside!

This workshop was exactly what I was looking for. I love to do value studies, but when it comes to translating the values into color, I often get stuck and even when I don't, it's easy to lose the value relationships. Perggi's set of exercises were tailor made for this problem. And working with live models was such a pleasure.

Each morning we began with "almost" blind contour drawings of 10 one minute poses. I love that, it's a great warm-up, really makes you use your eyeballs. On the first day we went on to value studies, first two values, then up to five. One of those is shown above. Next, was two values, but in two colors. I found this very interesting. All of the exercises shown here were done on the first day of the workshop.

I'll do another post with images from the second and third days. I can't say enough about the quality of Peggi's teaching. If you ever get a chance to take one of her workshops, go for it. And if you don't have that opportunity, Peggi's DVDs are also excellent, and a good refresher.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

I've been doing a lot of sketching lately, as much as possible en plein air. Mary Byrom suggested adding water color, even if you have to do it later, in the studio. This was drawn at Southport Harbor, Fairfield, CT, last weekend. A few days later I added the color. I like this idea! Thanks, Mary.

Friday, April 6, 2012

This month, River Arts is having an exhibition at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor. I'm honored to have one of my paintings (above) chosen for this show. The show runs April 1 - May 24, and there is an opening reception on Thursday, April 12, 5-7 pm in the Visitor's Center. Here's a description of the show from the Gardens:

This exhibit showcases talented midcoast artists’ expressions of Maine. The Gardens is honored to be partnering with one of the region’s newest and most exciting galleries, the non-profit organization River Arts Gallery of Damariscotta, whose mission is to nurture appreciation, encourage participation and provide opportunity in the arts.

The show is particularly exciting for me, because I love the gardens, and I've had a wonderful association with River Arts, both attending and giving workshops there. If you are in the area, I hope you'll stop by, check out the paintings, and enjoy the gardens.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of painting in New Castle NH with Mary Byrom and Barbara Carr, fellow members of the Plein Air Painters of Maine. New Castle is a delightful island community in the Piscatagua River between Portsmouth and Kittery, ME. I found this little red tug and couldn't resist painting it. I planned to do a quick 30 minute oil sketch, and Mary and Barbara were wondering what had happened to me when I finally returned 2.5 hours later. It was such a nice afternoon.